Page 18 of Confessions of the Dead

Matt looked at Sally and mouthed,Josh … Tatum?

She nodded.

The voice on the phone sounded nothing like the man Matt knew. He tried to speak between broken sobs. “ … wasn’t gone that long. Twenty … thirty minutes, maybe. Oh, God … you need to get over here …”

Matt leaned in closer. “Josh, what happened?”

“Lynn … Oh Jesus, Gracie and Oscar … oh my God, oh my God … please …” His voice trailed off. It sounded like he dropped the phone.

“Josh? You still there?” Sally said.

He hadn’t hung up, they could hear him crying, but he didn’t respond.

Sally bobbed her head toward the girl. “I got her. Go.”

12

Norman Heaton

NORMAN HEATON FELT DIZZY,then he didn’t. Came on like a breeze through the crack of a window left open, swept over him, then vanished. As with most aches, pains, spells, and general fuckery that visited a man’s body after breaking seventy, he acknowledged its presence, remained still until it passed, then confirmed he was still breathing on the other end of the ride.

“You gonna want more eggs?”

Eisa Heaton was standing at the kitchen sink in her favorite threadbare muumuu, her back to him when she spoke, but her voice sounded much farther away than it probably should, more like she was in the other room rather than five feet from him. Like he had water in his ears or was on an airplane dipping down toward its destination.

“Eggs?”

Norman noted his own voice sounded off, too.

“Yeah. Those things from chickens that you’re not supposedto be eating, like all that bacon and the half gallon of syrup you drowned your pancakes under. Eggs.”

Her voice came back full steam about halfway through that sentence, and all was right again with whatever came over him. No longer dizzy. Hearing all good. His ticker … Norman paused as if he could mentally assess his heart pumping away, found nothing abnormal, and decided that was all good, too. He’d been reading theHollows Bend Gazettewhen it started, and the corner of the sports page was now nothing but a crumpled mess in his sweaty palm. He unfurled his fingers, flexed, and smoothed the paper back out. His wife hadn’t seen any of it, and that was all right by him—any time Eisa sniffed even the hint of a health problem, she insisted he make a trip over to Doc Billets for a once-over, and he had no intention of missing the Patriots trounce the Raiders this afternoon.

“Norman?”

“Huh?”

“You done with breakfast or you want more? You didn’t answer.”

Before he could respond, she returned to the table, loaded up the length of her arm with leftover food and dirty dishes, and carried everything over to the sink.

“Yeah, I suppose I’m done,” he told her.

Before the dizzy spell, Eisa had been going off about the women in her bridge club. Something about Bernadette cheating again and Julie wanting to drop her from the group or suspend her, or some nonsense. Norman heard about every fifth word and tuned out the rest. He learned long ago the key to staying married for forty-seven-plus years wasn’t necessarily listening but knowing when to listen and when to not listen because hearing all of it would drive a man batshit crazy.

“ … even if she agrees to put an end to it,” Eisa said, taking his half-empty coffee mug away. “Does that make sense?”

“Yep,” he replied, finishing off his juice before she ripped the glass from his hand and carted that away, too.

Eisa was a talker. Always had been. She had no trouble carrying their conversations, and most days he had no trouble letting her. It was all fine when she did the talking, but sometimes she felt the need to rope him into the conversation, and today was one of those days. Usually about every three or four sentences she’d poke him, force him to answer before she’d go on. Norman had taken to calling them her needy days, and he downright hated the needy days.

Norman made a show of shaking out the creases from the newspaper and burying his face in the sports page again. He started the article about Jackie Bradley Jr. for the third time. No way the Red Sox would take him back, but the hack who wrote up the story was making a half-assed case.

Still blabbing away, Eisa crossed over to the refrigerator, took out two steaks, and carried them over to her cutting board. She tore away the packaging and began beating on them with a mallet. She was a good three minutes in before she stopped long enough to ask him, “You’re okay with steak tonight, right?”

Norman cleared his throat, shook the paper again, and gave a solid five-count before replying. “Yep.”

She did that all the time, too—asked him for his opinion when his opinion didn’t much matter anymore. He had half a mind to tell her he didn’t want steak just to see what she’d do with the two hunks of meat already beaten to death and the packaging in the trash. Norman knew they were having steak tonight whether he wanted it or not, so did Eisa, so why bother asking?

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